Archived Discussion

((Some Guy or Whatever)) Shadow Priests count as ranged dps, though technically they're sort of a mix between that and healing.

I'm not sure if we've got a Trope to describe it, possibly pay evil unto evil. But Akama is a goddamn massive freaking jerk-off towards Illidan. Before Illidan's arrival in outland his people were on the brink of being exterminated by Magtheradon and the Fel-orcs, after fighting a long and bloody campaign Illidan and his allies save the Draeni from genocide. Akama's response to this, conspire with Illidan's enemies and then attempt to infiltrate his fortress and assassinate him. Not to mention he doesn't even have the spine to do the dirty work himself, he simply pays adventurers to kill off the people who saved his race.

Danel: Did someone change the class descriptions? Anything which classes Hunter as melee is rather flawed.

Hey, is there some sort of X is a racial caricature trope? Both trolls and Night Elves are horribly based on black people, and Tauren (anagram of Nature) are noting but Plains Indians. Also, their dwarves are all the same. Edit, how about a Fantasy Counterpart Culture or two?

They're tall, they speak with a Jamaican accent, they have dark (blue, but black in WC 3) skin, the rivalry between the tribes in Stranglethorn is as close to pre colonial Africa as Blizzard can legally get to, and who else had which doctors? Furthermore, the Shadow Hunter in WC 3 had a direct "I pity da fool" quote. Yes, it would apply more to the Trolls than the elves. No, they don't have to be humans but they're the closest thing to them.

Rape The Dog (You, if you play a Death Knight. While soulless in the service of Arthas, you're complicit in genocide, butchering innocent civilians, and torture.)

Then again, this is due to Mind Control, so maybe it's one for Arthas. Can't blame the gun for the gun owner...

Consider though, that in a lot of cases, a Death Knight often fits Fallen Hero to a T. While many were killed by the Scourge and raised to serve the Lich King, just as many, through whatever reason, willingly made that choice. This troper would say that whether this trope counts in this case depends on the death knight in question.

And calling the Scarlet Crusade "innocent civilians" is about the definition of "inappropriate".

I think someone failed to notice that while yes, they were affiliated with the Scarlets, they were definitely helpless civilians and in no way any threat to you. Either way, sucks to be them I suppose. Nothing more than poor folks who made the mistake of supporting the Scarlet Crusade. Hows that for Moral Dissonance.

Into this:

Rape The Dog (Potentially, you, if you play a Death Knight. While soulless in the service of Arthas, you're complicit in genocide, butchering civilians under the protection of the Scarlet Crusade, and torture. Depending on the individual Death Knight, this may or may not be More Than Mind Control.)

I probably missed a something, for which I apologize, but it's the closest I could get to the original discussion in one line.

Fighteer: May I recommend the Jerk Ass section get a bit of cleanup? Besides, there's a Characters page where we can discuss Varian Wrynn to our hearts' content.

Farseer Lolotea: The following natter/conversation has been removed. Yes, King Varian is a tool...but if you want to bicker about it, do it here.

The Alliance looks like the 'good' guys because they're generally more attractive, and tend to be more noble, but a large portion of the human faction are racists (towards orcs), King Varian Wyrnn being a gigantic tool who refuses to accept peace as a viable option. However the humans have spat out some of the most noble, shining examples of Goodness in the game. The Horde, meanwhile, has the Orcs, many of whoom are very, very bitter about humans (they used to be slaves to them and generally treated like crap) and are very, very happy to slaughter them whenever the chance arises (Garrosh.) They're led by an idealistic leader who would like nothing better than if everybody just played nice. Then there's some sects of the Forsaken and Blood elves...Essentially, for every noble and 'good' NPC in the game, there's a psychotic Chaotic Evil counterpart just waiting...usually in the same room.

The orcs weren't slaves, they were prisoners. And they were that only because the King of Lordaeron (Arthas' daddy... you can see what a genius he was) prevailed on the other leaders of the Alliance to not simply execute the lot of them after the Second War. If not for that, there would be no orcs today, except the Frostwolves in Alterac Valley. Seeing how the orcs decimated the human population in the First and Second War, humans have something of a better justification for not liking orcs much.

Beforet: How exactly can a work be subjective? Beyond factors such as quality?

Neo_Crimson: I'd like to know too. We can't just label a game as "subjective" just because it has a large broken base.
Paladineer: Re-writing Ashbringer section of Aborted Arc. Please comment if you want something changed.
Fighteer: Added a (brief) description of what's known and suspected about Cataclysm so far. Also, there's a forum discussion thread about World of Warcrafthere.
mikkeneko: The organization of roles on this page and accompanying text doesn't really make much sense as is. I propose the following alternative classification:

While World of Warcraft features the standard RPG roles of tank, damage dealer, and healer, the classes themselves each have multiple specialization options and are best sorted by role:

Tank. The damage soaker or meat shield of the game, their job is to stand there and take it — the enemy's attention, that is. Tanks can be warriors, paladins, death knights, or feral (bear) druids. Generally their strategy is to wear lots and lots of armor, and to excel at dodging, blocking, and parrying techniques.

Melee damage. This further breaks down into two categories — magical and physical. Magical consists of shamans and non-tank paladins, while physical consists of death knights, warriors, rogues, and feral (cat) druids. Usually referred to as "DPS" for short — damage per second — the job of any DPS class is to unload a whole buttload of whoopass in as short a time as possible.

Ranged damage is also divided between physical and magical damage. Physical ranged is limited pretty much to hunters (see also 'pet classes;' see also '[[Munchkin total hax]].') Everyone else falls into the 'caster dps' category; some shamans, some druids, warlocks, mages, and shadow priests. Note that warlocks, mages, and priests are commonly known as 'clothies' due to their armor class, and more rudely known as 'squishies' for the same reason.

Healers. Their job is to keep everybody else alive, and to focus on this to the exclusion of everything else. Enemies? What enemies? With friends like this, who needs them? The classic healing class is Priest, of course, but more than equal to the job are also paladins, druids, and shamans who have taken a healing spec.

The reason for the fragmentation of classes into different specs is largely due to the game structure. Endgame content and cooperative content — raids and dungeons, respectively — can only be done with a well-coordinated group of players who fill out all four roles. However, group content is only part of the game; first you have to level up your toon, and that means lots and lots of solo play. The unavoidable requirements of solo play mean that even primarily healing classes like Priests need a way to lay on the hurting, so the solution is talent specializations, which gives all ten classes a damage dealing option.

All classes have a damage spec, but only some — the hybrid classes — can do more than that. The best known hybrid classes are Paladins, which can perform three of the roles — tank, healer, or melee DPS — and Druids, which can perform all four.

Fighteer: The page was organized like that, until someone decided to change it. I like this version better but it's really a matter of consensus, like everything on the wiki. And new discussion goes at the end, not the top.

JK Roo: The Titans show up, Deathwing and the Old Gods corrupt them, and there's nothing that can be done to stop planetary re-origination?
Fighteer: I just did an overhaul on the description to consolidate information, remove natter, and restore the original class writeup, because the section that was there just felt too forced.
Fighteer: Me again. I took out a bunch of material and some of it deserves explanation, so here goes.

Escort Mission: Removed the Natter about the Harrison Jones quest in Grizzly Hills. He is an elite mob and is more than capable of beating the snake boss and all the NP Cs by himself. It does move things along faster if you help him, though. Maybe his stint in Zul'Aman taught him something.

Even Better Sequel: Since the new, harder raid dungeons are in the game now, much of the conversation could be trimmed.

Nithael: About this one: it's a trope which was repeatedly added on this page by Mimimurlough without explanation, along with The Smurfette Principle, even though each time I removed it because I thought it didn't fit (and I still do).

Shadow Dragoon FTW: The following was recently added, then subsequently removed, from the main page. I think if you guys help clean it up and add more examples, we can justify putting it back up. The edit was exactly as follows.

Example 1: Level 70 Elite Tauren Chieftan, the band comprised of members of Blizzard, using avatars of Horde characters as the band itself.

Example 2: A new feature to be added in Cataclysm. Two words. Repeat after me: WorgenDeathKnight.

Example 3: Titles. This could be considered a different form of Rank Inflation, both with NP Cs and in some cases earnable titles by players. It can make it hard to see who outranks who, and some of the titles probably don't have any real historical precedent. For example: the Scarlet Crusade has a Grand Crusader, a Highlord, a High General, a Grand Inquisitor, and a Crusader Lord. It wasn't very clear who was actually in charge of the group until the Scarlet Onslaught in WoTLK got rid of all but a couple of them, and implied that Highlord is the highest rank with Tirion and Darion.

Rule of Cool, really? With titles like "Explorer", "Jenkins", and "Loremaster", there's nothing particularly interesting or awesome that I see there...

Your Mileage May Vary, but titles like "X, Champion of the Frozen Wastes" wouldn't exist if someone didn't think they were cooler than not having one. This is probably the same divide as people who give their toons actual RP names, people who give them titles-as-names, and people who just don't care and make their names something with lots of z's and other 1337 speek-kinds of tendencies—I don't think the latter is cool at all, for example, but someone somewhere does.

OJtheLION: Hmm, how about broad conceptual examples then? Things like titles, bosses, armor, etc, each under one part each, with each being as broad as possible. I think it wasn't that bad before we fell into Natter territory on the titles, but maybe just a generic "WoW runs on Rule of Cool" will have to suffice to avoid doubling the page's length.

Eamil: Not removing it because I can't swear 100% that it's not true, but I believe the Tony Jay example under Hey Its That Voice is something of an urban myth, as I've yet to see a valid source for this claim after years of hearing it, and the Death Knight intro voiceover mentioned (which as far as I can tell just by listening to it was done by the same actor as previous ones) was recorded WELL after Tony Jay's death.

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